French promotion card by Editions Musicales 707, Paris, no. 7. Photo: Disques Riviera. At the backside is the text of 'Broadway', words and music by Guy Marchand.
French postcard by PSG, no. 1284. Photo: Riviera. Sent by mail in 1966.
A beautiful crooner voice
Guy Émile Marchand was born in 1937 in Paris into a modest milieu. He was the son of a scrap metal dealer. He attended secondary school at the Lycée Voltaire during the daytime while playing his clarinet at night in the jazz clubs of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Additionally, he wrote songs, was adept at playing piano and had an affinity with tango.
During his military service, he trained as a reserve officer. He became a sub-lieutenant and a certified paratrooper. During the Algerian conflict, he was stationed with the 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment. His experience as a paratrooper qualified him as a technical advisor on the all-star World War II epic The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Gerd Oswald, Bernhard Wicki, 1962). He also had a bit part in the film which ended up on the cutting room floor.
Endowed with a beautiful crooner voice, he scored a summer hit in 1965 with his debut record, the song 'La Passionata'. Marchand was already 31 years old when he made his film debut in 1971 alongside Lino Ventura and Brigitte Bardot in the picaresque adventure film Boulevard du rhum (Robert Enrico, 1971). He played Bardot's silent film acting partner and lover.
His next film was the tragicomedy Une belle fille comme moi/Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me (François Truffaut, 1972), starring Bernadette Lafont. The role of a musician in the film was tailor-made for him. Three years later, Marchand had his breakthrough as a hot-tempered and unfaithful husband in the bittersweet romantic comedy Cousin, cousine (Jean-Charles Tacchella, 1975). This film received three nominations for the Césars and Marie-France Pisier won the César for Best Supporting Actress. The film also struck a chord in the United States and was nominated for three Oscars.
After the acclaim of Cousin, cousine, Marchand could record three more successes in 1978. In the comedies Tendre poulet (Philippe de Broca, 1978) and Vas-y maman (Nicole de Buron, 1978), he was cast alongside Annie Girardot. The featherweight L'Hôtel de la plage/Holiday Hotel (Michel Lang, 1978) achieved the biggest commercial success. It was followed a year later by the comedy Le Maître-nageur (Jean-Louis Trintignant, 1979) in which Marchand starred as a crooner.
French promotion card by G. et R. Joly, Paris. Photo: A. Nisak / Riviera.
Deputy or ex-husband
In 1981, Guy Marchand appeared in two commercially and critically successful crime films. In the tragicomic Coup de torchon (Bertrand Tavernier, 1981), Marchand played a racist police chief. The other crime film was the multiple César-winning Garde à vue (Claude Miller, 1981). Marchand shared in the awards with a César for best male supporting actor for his performance as Lino Ventura's deputy inspector.
That same year, Marchand collaborated for the second time with Gérard Pirès in the comedy Rends-moi la clé (Gérard Pirès, 1981) in which he embodied the ex-husband (of Jane Birkin), a role he often played. A year later, Marchand was again a deputy, this time to private detective Michel Serrault in the crime comedy Nestor Burma, détective de choc (Jean-Luc Miesch, 1982). Burma is a hard-boiled private detective, a kind of French Philip Marlowe. Marchand played this popular character in a TV series a decade later.
1982 was also the year of the blockbuster comedy Les Sous-doués en vacances (Claude Zidi, 1982), in which he embodied famous singer Paul Memphis and sang his hit 'Destinée', which he co-wrote.
Noteworthy crime comedies include the successful Hold-up (Alexandre Arcady, 1985) in which he was the accomplice of mugger Jean-Paul Belmondo, Conseil de famille/Family Business (Costa-Gravas, 1986) in which he was a safecracker and the commercial smash Ripoux contre ripoux/My New Partner II (Claude Zidi, 1990) in which he was a corrupt police inspector.
Noteworthy dramas from those years were Loulou (Maurice Piala, 1980) and Coup de foudre (Diane Kurys, 1983) in which Marchand repeatedly threatens to lose his wife, played by Isabelle Huppert. In Loulou he loses her to Gérard Depardieu, and in Coup de foudre to Miou-Miou. Coup de foudre scored well at the box office and picked up four nominations for the Césars as well as a nomination for the Oscar for Best International Film.
French promotion card. Photo: Marshall / Riviera.
His comeback on the big screen
During the 1990s, Guy Marchand was rarely seen in the cinema as he again became more involved in music and television work. Between 1991 and 2006, he appeared in only six films, mostly in modest supporting roles.
His most watched film from that time was Le Plus Beau Métier du monde/The Best Job in the World (Gérard Lauzier, 1995), the third and last comedy he made under the direction of Gérard Lauzier.
With Dans Paris/Inside Paris (Christophe Honoré, 2006), Marchand made his comeback on the big screen. In this tragicomedy, he tries as a father together with his second son (Louis Garrel) and his ex (Marie-France Pisier, his co-star in Cousin, cousine) to talk their eldest son (Romain Duris) out of his suicidal thoughts.
This was followed by the drama Après lui (Gaël Morel, 2007) in which he, like his ex Catherine Deneuve, has to cope with the loss of their son. After these two films, his film career disappeared back into the background due to the books he was publishing at the time.
In 2007, he published his autobiography, 'Le Guignol des Buttes-Chaumont'. In 2011 Le Soleil des enfants perdus' (The Sun of Lost Children) followed, which touched on his experiences in Algeria, and for which he received the Jean-Nohain prize in 2012.
French promotion card. Photo: Alain Marouani / Riviera.
A familiar figure to television audiences
In 2010, Guy Marchand's film career became more prolific again. He starred in the gripping historical drama L'Arbre et la Forêt/Family Tree (Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau, 2010). He played an old married tree farmer who carries a secret with him. The latter was imprisoned in a Nazi camp 50 years ago, not because of his political beliefs, but because of his homosexual orientation. The film won the Prix Jean Vigo.
From 1973, Marchand was a familiar figure to television audiences, mainly through his portrayal of the title role of the television series Nestor Burma (1991-2003), a private detective whose adventures aired for eight seasons. The series was based on the crime comedy Nestor Burma, détective de choc (1982) in which Marchand already acted as Nestor Burma's deputy.
Over the years (1965-2000), Marchand released many more singles and EPs. Some 20 albums were released between 1969 and 2020, including about five compilation albums.
Marchand was first married to actress Béatrice Chatelier, who played his ex-wife in Les Sous-doués en vacances (1982). They had two children. In 2006, Marchand met Adelina Khamaganova, a woman of Russian descent who was 40 years younger. They married in 2007. She left him a few years later and started a new life in Germany with a new partner.
In 2019 it was revealed that he was ruined, overwhelmed by his all-consuming passion for cars. In 2020, he met the musician/composer Ludovic Beier, with whom he collaborated on the production of his album 'Born in Belleville', which was released in November 2020. His final film was La plus belle pour aller danser (Victoria Bedos, 2023). Guy Marchand died on 15 December 2023 in Cavaillon, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. He was 86.
French promotion card by Printfield. Photo: Alain Resplandin / Barclay.
Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, English and French) and IMDb.
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